State OKs first-ever limits on carbon from fuel

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

California took aim at the oil industry and its impact on global warming Thursday, adopting the world’s first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks.

The Air Resources Board voted 9 to 1 in favor of the complex new rule, which is expected to slash the state’s gasoline consumption by one-quarter in the next decade. It seeks to expand the market for electric and hydrogen-fueled vehicles and jump-start a host of futuristic technologies to replace corn-based ethanol as well as oil.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the “first-in-the-world low-carbon-fuel standard,” noting that 16 other states are looking to California as a model and that President Obama has called for a national standard. It will “not only reduce global warming,” he said. “It will reward innovation, expand consumer choice and encourage the private investment we need to transform our energy infrastructure.”

The regulation requires producers, refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by 10% over the next decade. And it launches the state on an ambitious path toward ratcheting down its overall heat-trapping emissions by 80% by mid-century — a level scientists deem necessary to avoid drastic global climate disruption.

Experts say California faces droughts, fresh water shortages, rising sea levels and widespread extinction of plants and wildlife species from growing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. To read more, click HERE

— Margot Roosevelt